LAS VEGAS -- Beijing's Zhongguancun Science Park has been fancying itself as the Silicon Valley of China for quite some time. It's not, but what Z-park has developed into is becoming something interesting all on its own.
Zhongguancun Science Park, dubbed "Z-park," is an alliance of 10 "subparks" scattered across Beijing. Although there are other "science parks" in the country, Frank Tan--the organization's chief representative in its Santa Clara, Calif.-based Silicon Valley office--says that Z-park is the largest and most concentrated technology area in all of China.
According to Tan, the economic zone spans 89 square miles and packs 4 million residents, but isn't a contiguous group of land. The area boasts 23,000 high tech companies doing business worth $1 trillion yuan ($147 billion) and compromising 16% of Beijing's annual growth domestic product.
The Z-Park-based companies on display at CES hawk wares like candlelight-powered solar cell phones. Other high-profile members include Lenovo and search portal Baidu. In China, the buildings for all of these subparks are co-branded and emerging zones can apply if they grow to meet certain criteria.
"It's more like a symbolic thing. More like a logo," says Tan. "The closest thing would be Silicon Valley."
The presence of Z-Park at CES is likely a sign of Z-Park's development. It's the first year the economic zone has come to CES in coordination, and the group brought a dozen companies to showcase. The group also held their first Consumer Electronics Association-endorsed press conference.
Tan says their success is thanks in part to increasing support from the Chinese government. Z-Park companies enjoy uniform, and favorable, government policy like tax exemptions, immigration policy and government subsidies. What draws the group to CES, says Tan, is a global stage for launching new products. "This is our first effort to explore the feasibility of what else we can do to bring technology companies here," says Tan. "We feel this is a very good platform for Z-Park to come out of the country and join the world economy."
One thing that's definitely like Silicon Valley is Z-Park's competitiveness. Tan says his job in the U.S. is to woo U.S.-educated Chinese nationals back across the Pacific. The Chinese representative says that of Z-Park's 23,000 companies, 4,500 are founded by expatriates who returned to China.
"The U.S. took them years ago, and now its time for them to go back and serve their country," says Tan. "We call it the other way of brain drain."